I was standing on the sidewalk outside the pet store tapping on my phone. An old guy walked by very slowly, pushing a walker, with oxygen cannulae in his nostrils, wearing a jaunty Tyrolean hat.

“What did you do before you had those things?” he said.

I didn’t miss a beat. “Stared at the wall.”

He continued walking slowly on, laughing out loud.

— From my journal, this date in 2016.